What are my views on plagerism? As a college student this is a very important topic. If comitted there is a stiff penalty that the offender would face. But what exactly does it mean to plagerize something?
To me plagerism is copying a document or part of a document word for word without citing a source. I also consider it plagarism when a paraphrase is very close to the original document.
As college students are asked to do much research for papers, the possibilities for plagarism are countless. In essence, are they not just restating someone else's ideas when a paper is written? Maybe, but we are asked to pull information from multiple sources and document carefully where the facts were found. Because multiple sources are sought there is less of a chance for plagarism. These chances are much higher when using only one source.
Plagarism can happen almost unknowingly. Sometimes people feel they have restated ideas but then professors look at things and say to cite more.
